1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an X-ray computed tomographic apparatus having a scan plan support function, a scan plan support apparatus, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
A scan planning window in a conventional X-ray computed tomographic apparatus displays the respective elements constituting a scan plan in a table form mainly comprising a text. A conventional X-ray computed tomographic apparatus can only perform imaging in the Z direction (body axis direction) within a small range of several tens of millis (40 mm etc.) at a time, and hardly performs time-series imaging, i.e., a so-called dynamic scan.
Recent X-ray computed tomographic apparatuses, however, generally perform a scan under various conditions at once owing to an increase in the number of rows of detectors and a reduction in imaging time. For example, multi-slice CT using 256 or more rows of flat panel detectors which are wide in the slice direction, in particular, has greatly increased the number of scan mode options and considerably increased the imaging speed. It is therefore useful to plan more scans such as dynamic imaging, S & S scan, and helical scan altogether as a sequence.
For this reason, a “scan plan displayed in a table form” provides good operability and visibility with respect to scan conditions for each scan, e.g., a scan time and a tube current, but presents difficulty in intuitively and clearly understanding the overall scan sequence, e.g., the order of scans and scan intervals.